


smooth like glass

by sadlikeknives



Category: Benjamin January Mysteries - Barbara Hambly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-12 18:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13553208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/pseuds/sadlikeknives
Summary: Shaw and Dominique solve the case of some missing pearls.





	smooth like glass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [within_a_dream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/within_a_dream/gifts).



Lieutenant Abishag Shaw of the New Orleans City Guards spent a good half an hour lurking across the street from a certain little pink cottage on the Rue Burgundy before Henri Viellard finished his breakfast and departed, a half hour he knew he could have profitably spent interviewing one of the other witnesses on his list, were it not for the fact that he knew Dominique Viellard, if he could get her on the right track, would be the most useful by far. She didn't miss much. Not missing much seemed to be a January family trait.

He suspected he could have approached before Monsieur Viellard's exit without causing any offense, but that was an individual circumstance and not at all standard etiquette, and anyway it was always awkward to interview a lady about her private life with her gentleman present. So it was that only when the Viellard carriage had arrived and departed did he approach the house, slipping though the passageway to the backyard, where little Charmian was playing with her kitten and the cook was washing the breakfast dishes. At the back door, he asked the maid, Thérèse, to announce him to her mistress, and he was immediately shown into the parlor where Dominique was sewing what looked to be a dress for her daughter. She looked up from her work and smiled a lovely, warm smile when the maid showed him in. "Lieutenant Shaw, of course you don't have to come in through the back." Somewhere, Shaw thought wryly, the redoubtable Widow Levesque had just felt a chill. "I know you know where the front door is." _Unlike most Americans_ went unspoken. She didn't bother with an offer of a seat they both knew perfectly well he would refuse—even if it had been acceptable for an American man to sit in the parlor of a Creole woman, even a woman of color, Shaw would have been afraid he'd only dirty furniture as fine as Dominique's. "May I offer you a cup of coffee?" Shaw refused, and Dominque nodded, as if she'd expected as much, dismissed the maid, and got right down to business. "What can I help you with this morning?"

"Marie-Claire Fonteneau tells me that you were present at an entertainment at her house last night when her pearls were discovered missing."

"Mm-hmm, that's true, I was," Dominique said calmly, stitching away. "And I'm _so_ very glad you came to talk to me, because I expect she didn't tell you when reporting them stolen that those pearls are fake?"

Shaw blinked as he considered that. "Now I know," he began slowly, trying to find the most delicate way to phrase this, "that your ma thinks half the jewels in the parish are paste--"

"Oh, half, la, you're very conservative, sir. No, I _know_ those pearls are fake. The first year I went to the balls, you know, the clasp on my necklace broke right before the _tableaux vivants_ , and I went into a panic, as you can imagine. I was desperate to catch Henri and I was convinced he'd never notice me if my costume wasn't perfect." Sometimes Shaw was certain that he did not understand Dominique and Henri Viellard at all, but as long as they were both happy and Dominique's contract was as ironclad as he was certain her mother would have insisted upon, he supposed that was what mattered. "So I was in a state, and Angelique—you remember Angelique Crozat, she was murdered the night we met—well, she was a terrible woman, of course, but she did have her moments—she loaned me that necklace, and I was so nervous, and I have this bad habit with pearls: when no one was looking I rubbed them against my front teeth."

She'd lost Shaw. "Come again?"

"Well, that's how you tell if they're fake," Dominique explained, as if it was the most obvious fact in the world. Shaw supposed if you were Livia Levesque's daughter, it was. "Real pearls feel gritty against your teeth. Fake ones feel smooth, like—well, like glass. I _always_ just have to check, even my own pearls that I've had for years. So I did that, and I thought, 'Well, isn't it just like Angelique to be generous when they're paste?' Anyway, after Angelique got those pearls that were Madeleine Trepagier's—she's Madeleine Mayerling now, you know, and it suits her _ever_ so much better—she gave the others to Marie-Claire. She was in favor with her then, although she got out of it later and poor Clemence Drouet got in. Of course, even if they had been real, Madame Mayerling's pearls were better, although don't get me wrong, they're very good fakes. Honestly, the whole thing felt a little fishy to me. What kind of woman isn't fully dressed when her guests arrive, to only then discover her pearls are missing?"

"You think she stole her own pearls," Shaw said slowly. It...wasn't the worst theory he could come up with.

"Well, yes, of course. The servants certainly didn't do it, like she was going on about last night. 'Now, Marie-Claire.' Phlosine told her, 'all your servants are accounted for, aren't they, and who ever heard of such a thing when one of them has just made off with three hundred dollars worth of pearls?' I thought of saying they were fake then, but I didn't know if she knew. But the more I think on it the more certain I am."

"But why would she—wait, wait, no, that holds water."

" _Exactly_ ," Dominique said, leaning forward in her chair in her enthusiasm, just as if he'd said aloud 'to get a set of real pearls.' "She and Jean-Philippe--" Robicheaux, Shaw mentally filled in, Marie-Claire Fonteneau's protector "--have been having difficulties ever since he started courting that Lopez girl. Why, the other night at the ball Catherine Clisson was telling me that Marie-Louise Pellicot told her that," and Dominique was off on a long, winding tale full of digressions and asides, with Shaw nodding along and filing all of the information away in his brain as 'might be useful at some point,' before she finished with, "And so you see, those were _not_ the sleeves of a woman who's happy with her protector."

He was going to have to take her word for it about the sleeves. Hell, he would have been happy to put her up in court as an expert witness about the significance of the sleeves, if it came to that.

"Now, what are we going to do about it?" Dominique asked, and Shaw blinked at the casual 'we.' "I'll tell you what _I_ think, but as a man of the law you might disagree." As she outlined her plan, Shaw found that he did not, in fact, disagree.

That afternoon, Dominique paid a call upon her friend Marie-Claire, and the two were sitting together having coffee when Shaw arrived to update her on the hunt for her missing pearls—and to say, all apologies, "Ma'am, I've had good intelligence that the pearls may not have been the genuine article to start with." Dominique gave an artful gasp, and Shaw resisted the urge to shoot her a glare for laying it on a little thick, only because everyone knew Dominique always laid it on a little thick. It was part of her charm. "Now, they're still your stolen property," he added quickly.

Before he could claim that the City Guard would still take the case seriously while trying to keep a straight face, Marie-Claire broke down in tears and confessed all, including the current location of the pearls—in the river; they were only paste, as Marie-Claire had recently discovered, after all, and the legacy of 'that witch Angelique Crozat' besides—finishing her tale with a wail of, "He's going to leave me and marry that rat-faced Lopez girl and he won't even leave me with a decent strand of pearls!"

Shaw would never understand women, but at least Dominique Viellard did. "Oh, _cher_!" Dominique exclaimed, moving her seat closer so she could put one arm around her friend's shoulders. "Now, you don't know that's true," Dominique said, and paused and allowed, "Although she does look like a rat."

If it was the Lopez girl Shaw was thinking of, he found he could not disagree.

Marie-Claire sniffled and said, "She does. It's the squint."

"But the poor girl can't help it, you know those Lopezes are as inbred as anything!"

This seemed to have been the right thing to say, as it perked Marie-Claire up considerably. "They are inbred, aren't they?"

"So very inbred," Dominique agreed, patting her shoulder. "And anyway, if he does put you aside, the Lopezes are as rich as Midas, so you just make sure you make him pay through the nose in the settlement, is all. You don't have to resort to all these silly dramatics." If Shaw remembered correctly, Dominique had, while about eight months pregnant, forced her brother to take her down the Barataria in a pirogue so she could see Henri Viellard before, as she thought then, losing him to Chloe St. Chinian, and then there had been a great deal of trouble with a faked slave revolt, some pirate treasure, and a hurricane. Shaw had come into that somewhat late, but he had gotten a great deal of the story while injured and stuck in an attic waiting for the floodwaters to recede with their party, Chloe St. Chinian herself, and some lepers. But you would never have guessed it now, and after all, that situation had worked out marvelously well for Dominique, as most situations seemed to. "Now, I'm sure Lieutenant Shaw understands and you're not in any trouble, and I know just what we're going to do about Jean-Philippe getting you some pearls."

"Yes," Shaw agreed, "I think we can consider this matter closed. If you ladies will excuse me, I have some other matters to attend to." Dominique shot him a grateful look before bending her head close to her friend's, and Marie-Claire Fonteneau's maid showed Shaw out as the plotting started.

The next time he happened to see Mademoiselle Fonteneau, she was arriving at a Blue Ribbon Ball just as Shaw passed the Orleans Ballroom on his way to help break up a fight at a tavern on the Rue Bourbon, and he couldn't help but notice the new, magnificent pearl necklace she was wearing, or how pleased she looked. He had no idea whether or not she was still with Jean-Philippe Robicheaux, but it looked like things had worked out for her well either way. He'd expected nothing less once he'd left the situation in Dominique Viellard's hands.


End file.
